MyLibLog: website and blog of James LaRue

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So I used it for awhile today, and quickly realized it had to be simpler.

* To Do, as I first set it up, was a comprehensive list of all my tasks. But I already have that in Hivemind, and don't want to try to duplicate things just so I can get to them on various devices. So instead, I'll leave everything in Hivemind, then begin each work day by reviewing, and pulling out the four or five that I intend to tackle that day and putting them in Notecase Pro (from now on, NP). But I eliminated the whole "To Do" heading.

* Journal. Dragging things from To Do to Journal was an unnecessary step. Now I just have one heading: "Daily Log." I open a new node, use Shift-Ctrl-T to insert the date, then (as above), plan my day from consulting Hivemind and my calendar, and cross them off as I complete them. That gives me a work record without having to drag things anywhere.

* Goals and Projects - just cleaned it up and renamed it from Projects. The idea is to keep those big…

I spent some time yesterday (after a low key but fun Christmas with both kids at home) thinking through not just my work projects for 2012, but also what tool or tools to manage them with.

For a long time I've used Notecase Pro, a very full-featured and actively developed two-pane outliner. I hadn't really been paying a lot of attention to all the updates, though. Over the past year or so, it has turned into a remarkably capable project manager.

So I played with the idea of using it as a "dashboard." What I like about it, as opposed to Outlook, is that Notecase Pro is multi-platform (accessible from Linux), and allows for the hierarchical nesting of tasks or information. That arrangement helps me think. On the other hand, Notecase is NOT available on my Palm Pre or iPad, which requires some thoughtfulness about notes (Google Docs, mostly), and Hiveminder (a great to do manager with apps for the Palm Pre and for the iPad).

Last night, and today, was tough. Freddie (13 year old border collie/Bernese mountain mix) was in a lot of pain. As I did so many years ago when he had surgery to remove a cancerous mass, I slept downstairs on the couch so he wouldn't have to negotiate stairs. This time, he couldn't even stand up without help. So I was up maybe 8 or 9 times in the night. Most of the time, most of the night, inside or outside, he whined. I've never heard that from him. Pain.

Today, I took him to the vet to put him down. Just the two of us (and the very compassionate vet). The end took just 15 seconds (saline solution, anesthetic, stop-the-heart, flush), $300. He sighed - in relief, I think. But I was with him, telling him to the end that he was a good boy.

My wife volunteered to come with me (a very kind gesture), but she had to work. I couldn't have that hanging over me all day, so I took him in after my son got up and said goodbye to him. I wrote this poem: